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9.
On the road going past her land
we found one sock, a filthy thing
she said belonged to the bogey man

who comes at dawn looking for work,
his whole body wrapped in socks to keep warm
a woolen mummy with a red mouth
and seeping eyes

If I needed anymore evidence
she knew all the signs for terror
l had the new mole on my elbow
proof trolls dropped out of the ducts
while I slept to lick my skin, a physic
for their warted tongues,
just like she said would happen

No neighbors in sight,
I lived the pastoral summer with her in the squat house
in the middle of the field where the sky
liked to rest its heavy blue foot

Wheat-fringed horizon on all sides,
we stayed within our bounds
so the night we heard her garden gate crash open
when I tried to go to the window
she grabbed my arm to keep me
beside her on the couch.Pay no mind. Witches can’t abide locks

In the tent of light thrown by one lamp
we pretended not to hear, I pretended to read a book,
she pretended to darn some torn relic
as night swirled around the house,
the dark whispered and cursed, conspired
to rob the old woman blind

The next morning, on hands and knees
she scooped dirt into the heart-sized holes
where beets used to be. She re-mounded
her potato hills and clucked her tongue
damn fools went right past the cucumbers
perfectly ripe

When I asked her why would witches steal
when they could do magic, anyway
she kept her eyes on the earthThey’re hungry

Later in the afternoon heat
when I started to shiverMeans spiders running across the sun.

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8.
Inside the earth
I prayed for violence
waited for the frozen rind
above me to fracture

when I heard the snow
let down its damp
runnels of bright music
tunneling downward
seeking lake bottom in my ear,
I took stock of my vertebrae
puzzled them back into place
renouncing my hunched devotion
to this myth

I wove my collarbones
back into their basket,
de-chimed my ribs
and let go the clack
curled in my hands

Enamored
of new flesh softening my sharpness
I started to suspect
I am meant for blooming

and so what happens next—
the clawing sound,
the soil tearing above me
sunlight’s thick blade cleaving
the howling of the old woman—

comes as shock—her rusted hands
clutching, lifting me out of the husk
of every wrong ever done to her

She’s kept my name all this time
and when she says it
I feel the spade striking
buried rocks.